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NUCLEAR
Britain Receives U.S. Missile Shield Request
Iraq Used Many Suppliers for Nuke Program
Calculating risk
Uranium type is the issue in Iraq
Avoidable Tragedy post-Chernobyl
Lithuania gets added EU aid for nuclear closure
Ex-Iraqi Worker Tells of Fooling the Inspectors
U.N. Hunts for Arms as U.S. Assails Iraq, Dollar Slides
Small Clues to the Big Picture in Baghdad
Japan Says Nuclear Effort in Korea Merits Hard Line
China ships North Korea ingredient for nuclear arms
U.S. dismisses war concerns
U.S. to Begin Deploying Missile Defense System
Bush approves missile defense
Bush Orders Military to Build Limited Missile Defense by 2004
A Look at Missile Threats Against U.S.
Russia says no violations in Iranian nuclear plans
Scare Tactics On the Rise In Ukraine
Ukrainians Demand Reopening of Nuke Plant
Iraq has had last chance, says US
MILITARY
U.N.: Al-Qaeda's Afghan camps operating again
Peace Accord Signed in Congo
Britain denies Iraq war build-up under way
U.S. Commander Visits Chinese Military
Kurds vow: '10,000 men in Baghdad'
Turkey to send troops into northern Iraq if U.S. attacks from north
American intervention in Israel's elections
No Peace in Sight, Israelis Trust in a Wall
Venezuelan army boss issues threat
Venezuela Crisis Lacks Impartial Referee
TURKEY REPORTS DROP IN U.S. COMPENSATION OFFER
NATO, EU ink peacekeeping pact
Pakistan Withdraws Most Fighter Jets
Shelby Urges Creating New Intelligence Service
C.I.A. Chief Prospers From Bond With Bush
PENTAGON White House Plays Down Propaganda by Military
Pentagon Broadcasts Propaganda Over Iraq
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS
Panel warns against 'secret police'
Commission Opposes Terror Role for F.B.I.
LAPD Chief proposes banning most police pursuits
Albright To Testify At Hague Tribunal
Men From Muslim Nations Swamp Immigration Office
French Thwart Possible Chemical Attack
ENERGY AND OTHER
Brazil's new agriculture minister backs ethanol program
Oil Prices Rise Rapidly
RUSSIAN ECOLOGISTS SLAM MOSCOW MAYOR'S PLAN
ENVIRONMENTALISTS PROTEST ITALY
'War on Terror' Infringing Human Rights, UNHCR Says
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- britain
Britain Receives U.S. Missile Shield Request
Reuters
Tuesday, December 17, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A600-2002Dec17?language=printer
LONDON (Reuters) - Britain said Tuesday it had received a request from the United States concerning its planned missile defense shield, but had not yet given a response.
Prime Minister Tony Blair may have to approve the upgrading of early warning systems at Fylingdales in northern England to allow the U.S. program to go ahead.
Blair's official spokesman said Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon would make a full statement later Tuesday.
"It will confirm that we have received a written request from the United States but will not give our response," he told reporters, declining to give further details.
Britain has been preparing the ground for an announcement for some weeks.
Last month, Hoon declared missile defense could strengthen global stability and deter attack by "rogue states."
And last week, a Ministry of Defense discussion paper spelt out how a missile shield might work, its possible deterrence effect, the costs involved and what Britain's input might be.
If the government agrees, and sources say it is highly unlikely they would not, Blair will face serious opposition from within his ruling Labor Party.
Hoon is expected to give Washington an answer in the New Year.
In a first step toward setting up a missile defense umbrella, the U.S. in June unilaterally withdrew from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty which banned such systems.
The move worried U.S. allies and led to protests in the Labor Party, many of whose members are vehemently opposed to closer military links with Washington and argue a missile defense shield could spark a new global arms race.
The system, dubbed "Son of Star Wars" after an initiative pioneered by former U.S. President Ronald Reagan, depends on intercepting an incoming missile with another missile.
-------- business
Iraq Used Many Suppliers for Nuke Program
December 17, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Iraq-Nuclear.html
UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- Dozens of suppliers, most in Europe, the United States and Japan, provided the components and know-how Saddam Hussein needed to build an atomic bomb, according to Iraq's 1996 accounting of its nuclear program.
The secret declaration, shown to The Associated Press, is virtually identical to the one submitted to U.N. inspectors on Dec. 7, according to U.N. officials. The reports have not been made public to prevent nuclear know-how from falling into the wrong hands and also to protect the names of companies that wittingly or unwittingly supplied Iraq with the means to make nuclear weapons.
U.N. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the only difference between the two reports is that the latest has a 300-page section in Arabic on civilian nuclear programs and a slightly larger typeface that stretches it to 2,100 pages.
That foreign companies helped Iraq has long been known, and some of them have been identified before, but the Iraqi accounting adds up to the most exhaustive list so far of companies involved.
Iraq's report says the equipment was either sold or made by more than 30 German companies, 10 American companies, 11 British companies and a handful of Swiss, Japanese, Italian, French, Swedish and Brazilian firms. It says more than 30 countries supplied its nuclear program.
It details nuclear efforts from the early 1980s to the Gulf War and contains diagrams, plans and test results in uranium enrichment, detonation, implosion testing and warhead construction.
In one chapter, Iraq admits to having a pilot plan in September 1990 -- one month after it invaded Kuwait -- to increase the enrichment of recovered uranium to 93 percent using centrifuges. The process is a complicated extraction and purification method that at full scale requires thousands of connected, high speed centrifuges.
According to Iraq's report, the most detailed accounting of its former nuclear weapons program, it was also pursuing electromagnetic isotope separation as another method to enrich uranium, the key ingredient for an atomic explosion.
The Iraqis had everything they needed to make nuclear weapons, said Gary Milhollin, director of the Wisconsin Project, a Washington-based think tank on nuclear arms control. ``They weren't missing any components or any knowledge,'' he said in a phone interview. ``It was simply a matter of time.''
Milhollin said that had it not been for the 1991 Gulf War, Iraq would have had nuclear weapons by now, thanks to hundreds of suppliers who sold it an impressive array of equipment and expertise, often with their government's approval and without being aware of the ultimate purpose. According to the Iraqi accounting, induction and electron beam furnaces, which could be used in shaping uranium parts for an atomic bomb, came from Consarc Corp. of Rancocas, N.J. The company says the items were never delivered, however.
Newport Corp. of Irvine, Calif., is listed as a supplier of optical fiber, a product with uses ranging from communications to medical equipment. But the company said it doesn't carry the model listed in the declaration.
EEV Inc., based outside New York City, is listed as a supplier of a thyratron, which the company says is used in medical imaging equipment. It could not immediately verify the sale of the item.
Motorola Inc., was listed as the seller of fast photodetectors, but company spokeswoman Jennifer Weyrauch said she found no record to support the claim. ``A photodetector product is not part of Motorola's current portfolio.''
Most of the sales were legal and often made with the knowledge of governments. In 1985-90, the U.S. Commerce Department, for example, licensed $1.5 billion in sales to Iraq of American technology with potential military uses. Iraq was then getting Western support for its war against Iran, which at the time was regarded as the main threat to stability in the oil-rich Gulf region.
But inspectors have discovered over the years that Iraq often obtained supplies through middlemen or by lying to companies about the products' intended use.
``It was useful in the past and it will be useful in the future to go to companies and ask them questions,'' said Ewen Buchanan, spokesman for the U.N. weapons inspectors. While the Iraqi declaration provides a lot of important information, the companies can often give inspectors insight into the real extent of Iraq's programs.
Since the Gulf War, dozens of companies have either admitted to sales or were prosecuted in Europe for helping arm Iraq. Several no longer exist.
``Revealing company names can discourage other companies from getting involved in deals with countries like Iraq where you don't really know the true end-use of your products,'' said David Albright, an American nuclear expert and a weapons inspector in 1996.
According to Iraq's accounting, the real help came from German experts and companies, in particular H&H Metallform, which sold the Iraqis old designs for centrifuges.
Cooperation with H&H ``was fruitful and it was called upon to render technical assistance and consultations in various activities,'' Iraq wrote in its nuclear declaration.
In 1993, German courts found two H&H employees guilty of violating export law and sentenced them to over two years in prison for working with Iraq.
German companies allegedly involved in other aspects of Iraq's former weapons programs were named in a report Tuesday in the German daily Die Tag. The report also said companies such as DaimlerChrysler, Siemens and Preussag sold items to Iraq which were diverted to the weapons programs.
The companies either declined to comment on the report, or said the deliveries had nothing to do with weapons, such as trucks or auto parts from DaimlerChrysler.
Some of Iraq's nuclear materials were destroyed during previous U.N. inspections, and Iraq is now banned from repurchasing much of it. But reconnaissance photos released by the Bush administration in October indicate the Iraqis have been rebuilding sites previously used for nuclear development. A recent U.S. intelligence report says Iraq may have nuclear weapons by 2010.
Iraq acknowledged to inspectors last month that it was importing aluminum tubes which it said were for conventional weapons. The Bush administration said the tubes could be used to construct centrifuges for uranium enrichment. But nuclear experts differ on whether the tubes are of the proper size and material.
What Iraq still has, however, is the expertise to start again.
Albright said the new evidence, coupled with long-running suspicions ``that Iraq continued its nuclear weapons program even while inspectors were on the ground in the '90s,'' is what makes the latest declaration such a disappointment.
Mohammed ElBaradei, chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said last week that the new submission amounts to a rehash of the 1996 report and covers ``material we already had before.''
A line-by-line comparison of the table of contents from the 1996 declaration and the 2002 version which was released last week by the United Nations finds subtle differences, mainly in translation, but not in substance.
Inspectors were not surprised that Iraq resubmitted old reports since Baghdad claims it hasn't been working on weapons of mass destruction since the 1991 Gulf War. A submission of anything new would have contradicted that claim.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Associated Press National Writer Matt Crenson, investigative researcher Randy Herschaft and Frankfurt correspondent Melissa Eddy contributed to this report.
On The Net:
International Atomic Energy Agency: www.iaea.org
U.N. Monitoring Verification and Inspection Commission: www.unmovic.org
-------- depleted uranium
Calculating risk
The University of Illinois College of Medicine at Peoria received a Defense Department grant to study exposure to depleted uranium
December 17, 2002
By SCOTT HILYARD
Peoria Journal Star
http://www.pjstar.com/news/topnews/g106192a.html
Most of the billions of dollars spent on national defense are not spent on services or products that come out of central Illinois. Home to no Raytheons, Lockheeds or Boeings, the area has no national reputation as a beneficiary of Department of Defense contracts.
But that doesn't mean Peoria is getting shut out.
A local research scientist recently received a nearly $1 million defense department grant to study the effect on humans of a material the military used during the Gulf War - and continues to use - in the production of bombs and tank armor. It's not the $14.7 billion Lockheed Martin received in 2001, but it's good news for Dr. Stephen Lasley and his employer, the University of Illinois College of Medicine at Peoria, the recipients of the new grant.
"From a professional standpoint this research is really uncharted territory and that's a real challenge," said Lasley, an associate professor of pharmacology at the school where he has worked since 1986. "And from the school's perspective the capital investment we've received could lead into off-shoots that we hope might fund more of these kinds of studies after the grant period expires."
The grant - $965,931 through 2006 - funds research into the effects of depleted uranium on human physiology; depleted uranium being the heavy metal that is left over after highly radioactive uranium is removed to be used for nuclear weapons or nuclear fuel. It is about 40 percent less radioactive than just plain uranium - and considered less dangerous to humans because of that - but the complete health risks of exposure are not yet known. That's what Lasley and three lab assistants are studying with the government's money.
One health risk that is known about depleted uranium is that it's a highly-effective people-killer when used in bombs. Because it is exceedingly heavy, the depleted uranium is used in tank armor and in the production of armor-piercing munitions. Only a handful of Western countries, the United States and Britain among them, use depleted uranium in its weaponry, Lasley said.
During the Gulf War of 1991, American soldiers were exposed to depleted uranium (DU) in several different manners. There were those who handled munitions made of the material, those who inhaled smoke containing DU particles while entering or salvaging vehicles or bunkers that were hit with DU projectiles, and those victims of accidental friendly fire who left the Middle East with DU shrapnel embedded in their bodies.
According to the defense department's Office of the Special Assistant for Gulf War Illnesses a total of 320 tons of DU projectiles were fired by the United States during the Gulf War. And:
"DU friendly fire and accidental fire incidents contaminated a total of 31 U.S. combatants in the Gulf during 1990-1991. The incidents, and the resulting cleanup and recovery operations, exposed a number of soldiers to depleted uranium. Those with the highest exposures were in, on, or near vehicles which were struck," the office reported.
Lasley and his research team are using rats to study the effect of DU exposure. His study is two-fold: In one area he mixes DU samples with rat brain tissue. He is also embedding a millimeter-long wire-like sample of DU in the legs of rats to determine if shrapnel-like exposure has long-term health consequences. The research is too new to have led to any reportable results, Lasley said.
"We're looking into how much of the depleted uranium gets into the brain from muscle sites," Lasley said.
The military is interested in the study because it doesn't want to lose DU as munitions material.
"It's nasty stuff," Lasley said, "but valuable from a military perspective."
The biggest value is in its ability to pierce metal. When missiles made with DU strike a metal object, the impact actually sharpens the tip instead of flattening it.
Lasley said working with Department of Defense has been far different than his more typical experience working with the National Institutes of Health.
"The grant process is far less open than what I'm used to and that's made it a little difficult to adjust to," he said.
He expects to report initial findings by next summer.
----
Uranium type is the issue in Iraq
Dec. 17, 2002
Arizona Republic
http://www.arizonarepublic.com/opinions/articles/1217tuelet172.html
I have to take exception to the letter Friday by Richard Scott of Scottsdale ("Radioactivity is not evidence").
Scott states that because of depleted uranium from U.S. armor-piercing weapons used in Iraq during the Gulf War, "detection of radioactive material can lead us to no conclusion about Iraq's possession of nuclear weapons or programs."
This conclusion is completely erroneous and shows a total lack of understanding of the technical issues involved in determining the presence of nuclear weapons or associated programs.
It is not depleted uranium that is at issue here, but rather enriched uranium and the level of enrichment of the uranium. The isotope U-235 is the fissile material used in nuclear weapons, not U-238.
Depleted uranium, as the name implies, is depleted in the U-235 isotope to below that concentration found in naturally occurring uranium ores. Depleted uranium thus is greater than 99 percent U-238. Since U-238 is not fissile, it cannot be used in nuclear weapons. The determination as to whether uranium is either enriched or depleted in U-235 is routinely performed using a technique called mass spectrometry. I can assure Scott and Arizona Republic readers, that "the lab in Austria" is quite capable of making this determination.
Robert G. Behrens Tucson The writer is retired from the Los Alamos National Laboratory.
----
Avoidable Tragedy post-Chernobyl
A Critical Analysis
Rosalie Bertell, Ph.D., G.N.S.H.
President Emerita of the International Institute of Concern for Public Health
Member of the Board of Regents, International Association of Humanitarian Medicine
Journal of Humanitarian Medicine, Vol. II, No. 3, pp 21 - 28.
Date: Tue, 17 Dec 2002
From: "robert james parsons" <rjparsons@hotmail.com>
http://www.iicph.org/docs/bertell_on_Chernobyl.htm
Introduction:
Journalists and mathematicians have a way of focussing on one aspect of a complex situation in order to give a snapshot view of its magnitude. For example, one might read in the newspaper that a "six alarm fire" had occurred in some neighbourhood. This immediately conjures up the image of a very large fire requiring six fire stations to send trucks to the scene. It gives one no clue as to the magnitude of loss of life or property, the water or smoke damage, the impact on human lives and health, ecological impact, etc. Another example is that of a television show rating scale. If you see an estimate of five million viewers of some special event television, you immediately understand that this is a "rounded number" meant for comparison only, and which does not reveal how many people actually watched the show. Certainly some televisions played to an empty room and some to a large number of people watching the display in the local pub .It gives no indication of whether the watchers reacted positively or negatively to the programme. If the event is important, we expect professionals to fill in the details later.
Another misleading human custom is presenting an event as "small" when there exist more traumatic forms of the event. For example, the radiation exposure to depleted uranium in the Gulf War is presented as "small" in the face of a nuclear holocaust. Such exposure is not "small" for the victims.
Unfortunately, many government officials, physicists, engineers have used this tactic to deliberately minimize the health effects of radiation, and, in particular the immense suffering after the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. For example, some people actually believe that the magnitude of a nuclear accident can be gauged by the potential number of cancer deaths it will cause, and further, that cancer death is the only consequence! Minimalist reporting occurred after the Three Mile Island accident, downwind of nuclear weapon testing, and at serious military accidents like the one which spread plutonium in farm land in Spain. Most recently it has attempted to deny that exposure to depleted uranium weapons has caused severe health damage to the military veterans and the civilians in Iraq, Kosovo and most likely, in Afghanistan.
The minimalist reporting went even further with Chernobyl. The IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) and UNSCEAR (United Nations Scientific Committee on Atomic Radiation) recent statement that "only 32 deaths occurred, 200 were heavily irradiated and 2000 avoidable thyroid cancers" resulted from the Chernobyl disaster goes well beyond a mathematical short hand which gives immediate sketch about a disaster. This fifteen-year-later report about a complex painful situation should be much more precise and believable! It rather tries to obliterate from peoples minds and concerns the suffering of millions of persons in rural and un-evacuated areas who were exposed, and hundreds of thousands evacuated but not medically examined victims. When one probes a little more deeply, one finds that the honest scientists and physicians, trying to explain the widespread injuries and long term effects of nuclear exposure have been silenced.
In fact immediately after the disaster of April 26, 1986, due to IAEA policy, unless a person had been declared "overexposed" at the medical tent set up for the "liquidators" of the disaster, he or she was officially considered to be a "radio-phobia" case, a purely psychological phenomenon. Local physicians told people that there would be no medical effects of exposure, until, perhaps in ten or twenty years they may happened to develop cancer. But, not to worry! These future radio-genic cancers would be indistinguishable from "natural" cancers. The physicians soon learned from direct evidence of pathological injuries that this information from the physicists was less than candid. It was not surprising to learn that those who tried to minimize the disaster were the same people charged with promoting nuclear industries, for example, marketing nuclear reactors to the developing nations.
The experience of Chernobyl is not unique, but follows the secrecy pattern used at many lesser accidents which were mishandled in the same way. This has occurred both in the developed and developing world. In particular, I would note the radioactive pollution of the Mitsubishi Asian Rare Earth facility in Bukit Merah, Malaysia, the radioactive waste dumped in Nigeria and the contaminated food distributed to Egypt, Papua New Guinea, India and other countries during the Chernobyl disaster clean up.
However, the health problems due to Chernobyl continue to be very acute right now, and demand international attention and action. Scientists and physicians are deprived of their freedom, and the people, especially the children, are suffering. This crisis can serve to point out the serious secrecy, vested interest and collusion of international agencies protecting nuclear technologies. The public face of the nuclear industry has been "clean and safe". It is important to unmask this public face, serving as a warning to economically developing countries deciding on energy technologies and bringing needed humanitarian aid to the victims. Preserving the false image of nuclear technology keeps the industry and nuclear agencies in business.
Lessons from Hiroshima and Nagasaki:
Unlike the general study of toxic materials, handled by Toxicologists, the field of radiation and health has been dominated by physicists, engineers and mathematicians since the dawn of the nuclear era in 1943. Their health related communications differ radically in content from similar communications of health professionals in Toxicology, Occupational or Public Health.
This field of radiation health was, with a few exceptions, taken over by the physicists of the Manhattan Project after World War II, in their effort to contain the secrets of the nuclear age. Radiation was an effect of the atomic bomb. Secrecy caused these "hard scientists" to fail to consider the broad range of responses and varieties of vulnerabilities possessed by a living population exposed to this hazard. Such variation in biological responses would have been expected by health professionals..
Because of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, most people now know about acute radiation exposure syndrome, with vomiting, hair falling out, alterations in blood cells, etc., and this bit of information has been translated into a naive belief on the part of the public, that unless acute radiation sickness has been documented (often by the government physicists) any subsequent severe illness observed in radiation exposed persons is due to something, anything, but not radiation exposure. This has some historical validity, but at Chernobyl with millions of exposed persons in rural un-evacuated areas, hundreds of thousands evacuated but not medically examined, and with the population's continuous ingestion of contaminated foods for the past fifteen years, demanding documentation of radiation sickness is ridiculous. Even in the Japanese cities radiation sickness went undocumented for many victims. Radiation injury is not predicated on documentation of acute radiation sickness, but rather on the alteration of a cell leading to a fatal cancer. It is well documented the these cellular level events can occur well below the level of exposure which causes overt sickness. The amount of energy released by just one nuclear transformation of one atom of a radioactive material is measured in thousands or millions of electron volts. It requires only 6 to 10 electron volts to break the molecular bounds in the cellular DNA and RNA which carry the genes for life.
In Hiroshima and Nagasaki (1945), exposure and subsequent health records were not complete. The research stations did not begin to select a study population until after the 1950 Japanese census identified survivors and a 1967 dose estimate was derived by the scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the U.S.. Deaths prior to 1950 were ignored. Death certificates, which were at times incomplete, were used to determine first cause of death of the study population. Cancers which were not fatal were not reported until 1994. Most survivors are still alive so their "cause of death" has not yet been studied. Other non-cancer health problems were considered to be "not of concern" and have not been systematically reported.
There were persons who entered the contaminated territories of Hiroshima and Nagasaki after the fire died down, or who consumed radioactive contaminated food and water, who experienced radiation sickness, but were not officially recognized as "exposed". They are in the radiation exposure control group. This is easily explained to the mathematician, who is told that the Hiroshima and Nagasaki studies looked for the effects of the immediate penetrating radiation from the exploding bomb on the persons who were within three kilometres of the hypocenter at that moment. For the military person looking for information on the health effects of radiation due to the bomb, this artificial limitation made some sense. However, if a civil society is seeking information on the effects of man-made radiation on the human body, then all sources of that man-made radiation, including that from nuclear fall-out, food and water contamination, residual radioactive debris at the bomb site, etc., is important. Changing the definition of "exposed to man-made radiation" to mean "exposed to the bomb", and then using this research to back public and occupational health policy is problematic to say the least!
Because of this concentration on the first flash of the atomic bomb, serious mistakes have been made by the radiation physicists in estimating the biological damage done by ingested or inhaled radioactive particles, many of which remain in the body for a long time and even enter into biochemical reactions of the cell's genetic material.
It is this atomic bomb study which appears to be dictating much of the inappropriate behaviour of officials with respect to the medical treatment of survivors of Chernobyl and other nuclear accidents. It has also caused harsh treatment of the honest scientists and physicians who spoke directly for the needs of the exposed suffering people. Many of these scientists and physicians, now in prison or effectively silenced, have conducted well designed and executed scientific studies.
Due to the complications generated by the study of external irradiation by a bomb being used to evaluate civilian exposures to inhaled or ingested radioactivity, and the use of this research to educate young physicists and nuclear engineers, many scientific blunders and administrative problems were generated. The failure to deal with the whole breadth of radiation problems became entrenched in the very agencies which were created in the 1950's to protect the public at risk from atmospheric nuclear testing. I will try to unravel the problems with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the United Nations Scientific Committee on Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR), the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP), the U. S. National Academy of Science Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation Committee (BEIR) and the World Health Organization(WHO). All of these organizations, except WHO, which was relegated to treating the victims rather than understanding the problem, play key parts with respect to current radiation and public health policies and understandings. Ironically, the World Health Organization, created by the United Nations in 1948, was not given any role in the health assessment of this global threat to human and ecological health.
United Nations Initiatives:
Nuclear bombs were first used in war in 1945, when the U. S. used them against Japan in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. As early as 1946, the U. S. began atmospheric testing of nuclear bombs in the Marshall Islands, in the Pacific Ocean. The former Soviet Union demonstrated that it had the nuclear bomb in 1949, and there was tangible fear of a nuclear exchange during the Korean War. The U.K. began nuclear weapon testing off the coast of Australia in the 1950s, and then on the continent itself and in the Pacific Islands.
The first atomic bombs were based on fission, and because of this they were limited in their destructive power. The force of the explosion blew apart the fissioning materials, terminating the explosive energy release. In 1954 the U. S. tested a thermonuclear device (hydrogen bomb), called Bravo, at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands, demonstrating that a nuclear device with unlimited power could be built. This one was about one thousand times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb. It was this military accomplishment which prompted the "Peaceful Atom" speech of President Dwight Eisenhower before the United Nations in 1954.
The speech followed a shift in U. S. Military Policy to dependence on nuclear bombs and a rush toward production of uranium and the technology necessary to carry this out a major weapon replacement programme: uranium mining and milling, uranium processing facilities, nuclear fuel fabrication facilities, nuclear production reactors, reprocessing facilities and the hazardous transportation and waste associated with each of these industries. In order to obtain American and global cooperation during peace time, there was a perceived need for commercial or so called "peaceful uses" of nuclear technologies which would justify everyone's cooperation in the nation and the international community. Nuclear electrical production was billed as capable of fulfilling all of the energy needs of the developing world, and being "too cheap to meter". It was promoted as the hope of preventing future wars since no country would be in need!
The United Nations responded by creating in 1955, UNSCEAR (Res 913(X) 1955) to "assess and report levels and effects of exposure to ionizing radiation". According to the UNSCEAR website, "governments and organizations throughout the world rely on the Committee's estimates as the scientific basis for evaluating radiation risk, establishing radiation protection and safety standards, and regulating radiation exposure." UNSCEAR was envisioned as an organization of physicists, who at that time were the only ones who could measure radiation since it escapes our senses and requires specialized instruments for detection. They were the experts on the hazard of ionizing radiation, but failed to have the expertise to predict the varied human response to exposure to this hazard. In an odd way, perhaps because of their training in physics, they managed to average all exposures over the entire population of the world, now some six billion people. Natural background, because it is ubiquitous, rather homogeneously exposes everyone. However a localized accident or relatively small work force's exposure, when averaged over the whole population can be made to seem trivial. It is not trivial to those who receive the exposure!
UNSCEAR became primarily a reporting agency, detailing the measurement of radioactive fallout, worker exposures and eventually emissions from nuclear power plants. I would assume that legislators saw this agency as providing independent monitoring of nuclear activities as a check on predicted pollution and theoretical estimates of harm. Unfortunately, UNSCEAR incorporated into its midst those same scientists who were making the predictions and estimating "no harm from low level radiation". No other industry is allowed to monitor itself. We do not ask the tobacco companies to tell us about tobacco's harm, or the pesticide companies to tell us the effects of their products on children. More on this point later.
In 1957, in response to the "Peaceful Atom" speech, the U.N. also established the IAEA, which describes itself as "an independent intergovernmental, science and technology based organization, in the U. N. family, that serves as the global focus point for nuclear cooperation." Its mandates is described as: "to promote peaceful uses of nuclear technology, develop safety standards, and verify that nuclear weapon technology did not spread horizontally to the non-nuclear Nations". They had no mandate with respect to the nuclear weapons of the five nuclear states. Because of their nuclear watch-dog task, IAEA reports directly to the U.N. Security Council.
Response of the World Health Organization:
In 1957, the World Health Organization, which had been founded by the U.N. in 1948, became alarmed about the atmospheric nuclear testing and the proposed expansion of this technology for "peaceful uses". It called together eminent geneticists to consider the threat this exposure would pose to the human and ecological gene pool. Prof. Hermann Muller, the geneticist who received a Nobel Prize for his work on genetic mutations of the fruit fly, using ionizing radiation, in 1944, was a participant at this conference. Although the United States had not sent him as its delegate, he received a standing ovation at the conference for his work, and he consistently opposed extension of nuclear technology into civilian uses. The conclusion of this expert group was that there was not enough information available in the scientific community to assure the integrity of future generations should the burden of ionizing radiation exposure be increased. They called for extreme caution and further genetic investigations, especially in Kerala, India, where there is a high natural background level of radiation, and people have lived in this environment for hundreds of years. These recommendations were never implemented by governments anxious to get on with nuclear activities.
Later an independent NGO in India studied genetic damage in the high radiation background area and found it indeed significantly increased. An Article by B.A.Bridges in Radiation Research (Vol 156, 631-641; 2001) suggests that genetic mutations due to radiation imply that "the nature of the radiation dose response cannot be assumed". There is more complexity than was expected in the health consequences of changed DNA sequences. The serious implications of nuclear pollution for future generations is still an area of research demanding more than ordinary caution.
One can guess at the politics behind a second WHO conference, called later in 1957, of Psychiatrists to consider the Public Health impact of peaceful nuclear activities. These professionals concluded that such activities could cause undo stress to the population because of the association with the atomic bombs. One finds that this has become a mantra for the physicists who have subsequently controlled all information relative to the health impact of nuclear technologies. Most recently, when UNSCEAR released its 15 year assessment of the Chernobyl disaster one of its spokespersons, Dr. Neil Wald, Professor of Occupational and Environmental Health at the University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health, stated: "It is important that public misperceptions be reduced as much as possible in this area, because unwarranted perception and fear of harm can itself produce avoidable health problems, as well as erroneous societal benefit vs risk judgements." Loosely translated, Dr. Wald appears to be saying: "if the public gets upset we will not be able to make our money with this nuclear technology".
After the Three Mile Island accident in 1979, in response to the people's demand for a health study, the government organized a study headed by a Psychiatrist from the Annapolis Naval Academy. He drew concentric circles around the failed nuclear reactor and compared the cancer rates and also the levels of fear and tension of those living with in these layers. A sensible study would have looked down wind for air borne radionuclide effects, and down stream for the water borne effects. This official study found only fear, which was positively correlated with distance from the plant.
There were about 2000 injury cases from the TMI population taken to court for compensation of health damage due to the radiation exposure. The nuclear company fought all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court against the courts even hearing these cases, and lost. Then the industry found an old law stating that an expert witness must use the methodology used by other professionals in their field, and using this, the nuclear company managed to disqualify every expert witness (physicians, epidemiologists, botanists, biologists) brought in by the victims. The physicists and engineers claimed sole expertise in the area of radiation health effects. All cases were dismissed by the court without one being heard.
A 1959 Deal Between WHO and IAEA:
This potential conflict between those who wished to exploit the new nuclear technology for both profit and military power, and the custodians of the public health, was superficially resolved by an Agreement (Res. WHA 12-40, 28 May 1959) stating that the IAEA and the WHO recognize that ..."the IAEA has the primary responsibility for encouraging, assisting and coordinating research on, and development and practical applications of atomic energy for peaceful uses throughout the world without prejudice to the right of the WHO to concern itself with promoting, developing, assisting and coordinating international health work, including research, in all its aspects." If the reader is confused, so is the writer. To understand this, one needs to know that the health effects of radiation were classified as secret under the U.S. Atomic Energy Act for national security. The "international health work" assigned to the WHO was taking care of the victims. While technically the IAEA and WHO are "equal" in the U.N. family, those agencies which report directly to the Security Council, as does IAEA, have more status.
In Article I (3) of the WHO/IAEA agreement, it is stated that "Whenever either organization proposes to initiate a programme or activity on a subject in which the other organization has or may have a substantial interest, the first party shall consult with the other with a view to adjusting the matter by mutual consent". This clause seems to have weakened the WHO from investigating the Chernobyl disaster, and gave the IAEA a green light to bring in physicists and medical radiologists to assess the damage relative to their limited knowledge of the health effects of radiation. (Note: while radiologists use ionizing radiation in their work, they deal with health damage only after the patient receives therapy levels of radiation.) This first evaluation used a different epidemiological protocol in each geographical area and with different age groups, eliminated all concern for cancers as not having sufficient latency periods and failed to note the extraordinary epidemic of thyroid diseases and cancers. From the point of view of Medical Epidemiology they failed miserably to deal with the reality. The director of this 1991 Epidemiological study, Dr. Fred Mettler, is a Medical Radiologist. There were no Epidemiologists, Public Health professionals or Toxicologists on the IAEA Team.
The Self-Established ICRP:
UNSCEAR has continued to be the measurement agency, which verifies that all planned releases of ionizing radiation to the environment, and all exposures of workers, are "acceptable". It fell to the IAEA to "establish or adopt, in collaboration with other competent international bodies, standards of safety for the protection of health and to provide for the application of these standards".
Neither the IAEA nor UNSCEAR turned to the WHO to develop such protective health standards. Instead they both turned to a self-appointed non-governmental organization formed by the physicists of the Manhattan project together with the Medical Radiologists, who had organized themselves in 1928 to protect themselves and their colleagues from the severe consequences of exposure to medical X-ray.. This new organization, called the ICRP (International Commission on Radiological Protection), has a Main Committee of 13 persons who make all decisions. Members of this Main Committee were originally self appointed, and have been perpetuated by being proposed by current members and accepted by the current executive committee. No outside agency can place a member on the ICRP, not even the WHO.
The UNSCEAR 2000 Report was prepared by a Committee including the following seven persons who also serve on the thirteen person Main Committee of ICRP: Prof. Roger Clark (currently the Chair of ICRP), Prof. Rudolf M. Alexakhim, Dr. John D. Boice Jr., Prof. Fred A. Mettler Jr.(the same radiologist who headed the IAEA Chernobyl epidemiological study), Dr. Zi Quiang Pan, and Dr. Yasuhito Sasaki.
It is the ICRP which makes recommendations for the protection of human health for workers and the general public. By their own admission, they are not a public or environmental health organization. They have given themselves the task of recommending a trade-off of predictable health effects of exposure to radiation for the benefits of nuclear activities (including the production and testing of nuclear weapons). Their recommendations were first set in 1957, when the medical radiologists accepted the proposal which had been hammered out by the British, Canadian and American physicists after World War II.
The original recommendation that workers be allowed 15 rad (150 mSv) per year was opposed by the British NRPB and an independent committee called the BEAR (Biological Effects of Atomic Radiation) funded in the U.S. by the Rockefeller Foundation. This forced the ICRP to reduce their recommendation for nuclear workers to 5 rad (50 mSv) per year. Maximum permissible doses for members of the public were ten times lower. This recommendation remained in effect until 1990, when under pressure from more than 700 scientists and physicians, and after a reassignment of doses at the atomic bomb research centres, the worker exposure was reduced to 2 rad (20 mSv) per year, while exposures to the public were reduced by another factor of five to 0.1 rad (1 mSv) per year.
Who Takes Responsibility?
It is important to note that no agency takes responsibility for these recommendations, and the WHO is excluded from professional collaboration or comment on them. ICRP recommends, and the Nations are free to implement or not these recommendations. The Nations generally accept ICRP recommendations claiming that they do not have the expertise or money to derive their own standards. The recommendations are for a risk benefit trade off, and do not pretend to be based solely (or primarily) on protecting the public or worker health.
IAEA states: "The underlying biological basis of the standards over the last several decades has rested primarily on the UNSCEAR. This Committee was originally formed during the period of atmospheric weapon testing to assess the physical processes and health effects of fall out, but has since broadened its remit considerably".
UNSCEAR contains and depends on the leaders of the Main Committee of ICRP. Those who set the standards also judge them to be adequate! Usually scientific theory is tested against reality and rejected if it fails to conform. Radiation health predictions are tested against the reality of the victims, and if reality fails to conform to theory, reality is rejected. The suffering is blamed on some unknown cause!
Another body that also assesses radiation risk is the BEIR Committee of the U.S. National Academy of Science. The BEIR (Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation) Committee was established in the U.S. around 1978 to counter accusations that the Nevada atmospheric nuclear tests had caused the deaths of thousands of American babies. BEIR is essentially a report and interpretation of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki studies of the effects of the atomic bomb, as previously discussed. These atomic bomb studies do not underpin the radiation standards, which actually were established some 17 years before the 1967 dose assessment for atomic bomb survivors on which the atomic bomb studies are based was completed.
IAEA radiation standards for nuclear waste were made "on the basis of recommendations by a number of international bodies, principally ICRP, and estimations of radiation risks made by UNSCEAR . IAEA Safety Requirements for radioactive waste, including standards, codes of practice, regulations, etc., "may be adopted by Member States at their own discretion for use nationally". These IAEA requirements are mandatory only for the IAEA itself.
What happened to the people of Chernobyl?
One can easily imagine that there were civilian victims of radiation sickness in the midst of the chaos during and after the Chernobyl disaster who were never seen at Hospital Six in Moscow! However, the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) continues, even in 2002, to insist that only 32 persons died of radiation exposure at Chernobyl! These "counted" deaths were all men from the fire fighting brigade identified as seriously exposed and sick by the heroic physicians and other health personnel at the emergency medical tent near the crippled reactor. This type of counting goes even further than the usual mathematical and journalistic approach - it deliberately and maliciously minimizes the scale of this disaster and leaves the public vulnerable. Those who were exposed suffer without appropriate medical recognition and help, while those at a distance remain unprepared for another, perhaps worse, disaster.
Moreover, since the land contaminated by the failed reactor was poisoned, the fruits and vegetables grown on it, and the domestic animals who feed on it, and their milk and meat, are also contaminated. Russia, Ukraine and Belarus have taken this contaminated food and with the advise of the IAEA, have mixed it with un-contaminated food from other parts of the former Soviet Union. This diluted (or adulterated) food has been given to the people to eat, subjecting them to continuous low doses of internal contamination with radionuclides for the last fifteen years. In Belarus, people actually received money from the government for moving back onto the badly contaminated areas and setting up new farms.
The false claims of the IAEA have also failed to rally the international community to help the victims of this disaster. People have not responded internationally, with their characteristic generosity, to the tremendous needs of the people whose heath and lives were cruelly disrupted.
The IAEA and its companion body, UNSCEAR (United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation) have gone even further in the Spring of 2002, by recommending that Chechen and Central Asian refugees re-populate the still contaminated area around the failed reactor. This raises some very serious questions about the mismanagement of information and communication around this serious disaster.
These two UN agencies, namely, IAEA and UNSCEAR (and their partner the ICRP), have apparently supplanted the WHO (World Health Organization) in speaking to the health risks of this nuclear technology, and in particular, to the post-Chernobyl contamination of the people and the land. Whether or not this land is fit for inhabitation, or for food production requires health assessment, not a promotional OK from two agencies which have financial ties to the polluting industry!
The WHO tried to take some initiative on behalf of the suffering people, and in 1996 its Director-General, Dr. Hiroshi Nakajima, organized in Geneva an international conference with 700 scientific experts and physicians, many of whom came from Russia, Belarus and Ukraine. The IAEA, which to its dismay was not invited to jointly sponsor this international conference, nevertheless blocked publication of the proceedings.
The physicians of Chernobyl then organized a conference in Kiev, Ukraine, in June 2001, and invited Dr. Nakajima (who was no longer Director-General of WHO) to be their Honorary President. He was asked about the proceedings of the 1996 WHO Conference about the health of the Chernobyl victims which had never been published. He answered as follows: "I was the Director-General and I was responsible. But it is mainly my legal department... Because the IAEA reports directly to the Security Council of the United Nations. And we, all specialized organizations, report to the Economic and Social Development Council. The organization which reports to the Security Council, - not hierarchically, we are all equal -, but for atomic affairs ... military use ... and peaceful or civil use ... they have the authority".
Because of the internal UN structure, which is grossly out of date, the voice of the physicians and scientists actually dealing with the situation were not heard. It is outrageous to measure the radiation and then present a theory that no one has been hurt! It is imperative to look at the victims and assess their injury. Internationally, the theoretical voice of the ICRP, an NGO, which speaks through the IAEA and UNSCEAR, has prevailed! All three agencies have a vested interest in maintaining the reputation of nuclear industries as "clean and cheap", even if they arn't!
The representative of the U.N. Office for Humanitarian Affairs, D. Zupka, was present at the Kiev Conference, and he shared with participants the view of Kofi Annan, who estimated that the number of victims of Chernobyl is nine million! They are predicting that this number will increase. However, their voice is overpowered by the "scientific" voice of the ICRP speaking through the IAEA and UNSCEAR. This seems incredible, but is the heavy burden which we suffer as a legacy of the nuclear secrecy.
Because of the self-serving theoretical predictions and safety recommendations of the ICRP which colour the expectations of these radiologists, physicists and engineers, even when they are confronted with the reality of the suffering of the Chernobyl victims, these scientists strongly declare that the observed health problems could not be due to the radiation exposure. Health problems are instead assigned to an unidentified factor in the environment or life-style. Hans Blix, Director of the IAEA at the time of the Chernobyl disaster, went so far as to say: "The atomic industry can take catastrophes like Chernobyl every year". There is an obvious conflict of interest for this agency mandated to promote nuclear technologies!
At the Kiev Conference, Alexey Yablokov, President of the Centre for Political Ecology of the Russian Federation, pointed out that the data used by UNSCEAR had been falsified by the State Committee for Statistics, and the officials were arrested in 1999 for this crime. He charged that UNSCEAR continued to use this falsified data to support its minimization of harm.
The medical research of Prof. Y Bandazhevsky, a medical pathologist, Rector of the Medical Institute of Gomel, in Belarus, had to be presented by a colleague, Prof. Michel Fernex. Prof. Bandazhevsky was under house arrest. Belarus received the heaviest fall out from the Chernobyl disaster. After nine years of research in Chernobyl-contaminated territories, he had discovered that cesium 137 incorporated in food, leads to destruction of those vital organs where the cesium 137 concentrates at higher than average body levels. With his wife, a paediatric cardiologist, Bandazhevsky described what he called "cesium cardiomyopathy", and which others say is a syndrome which will eventually be named after him. The cardiac damage becomes irreversible at a certain level and duration of the cesium intoxication. Sudden death may occur at any age, even in children. After publishing this finding, denouncing government non-intervention policy, and arguing against the lack of resources given to the medical investigation of the disaster, Bandazhevsky was arrested, tried and condemned to prison for eight years.
The trial of Prof. Bandazhevsky was observed by lawyers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), from the French Embassy in Minsk, and from Amnesty International. These observers documented irregularities and legal errors from the time of his arrest. In the middle of the night of July 13, 1999, Prof. Bandazhevsky was arrested by a group of police officers, who informed him that the arrest was by presidential decree aimed at fighting terrorism. This was never charged in court. In fact, it was not until four weeks after his arrest, August 1999, that he was finally charged with taking bribes. These proved to be trumped up charges by two defendants who later recanted their testimony saying it was forced under duress and threats. Prof. Bandazhevsky was denied access to a lawyer for the entire duration of his detention, and during the trial there were serious breaches of Belarussian and international Law. Amnesty International has listed Prof. Bandazhevsky as a prisoner of conscience. He is not well, and his important research is being kept from his scientific and medical colleagues.
Professor Bandazhevsky is not alone. The Russian, Belarussian, and Ukrainian medical community, though silenced in international circles, was still present and active in alleviating the suffering and noting the causes of their people's pain. Many have carried out detailed high quality scientific studies on the genetic, teratogenic and somatic damage done by radiation exposure. They have confirmed their analyses by demonstrating the effects in animal experiments. The rest of the world is being deprived of this research through heavy handed silencing of the scientists by their national authorities, acting on the recommendations of the IAEA and UNSCEAR (and especially ICRP).
Recommendations:
While many individuals have been trying to make known this major U,N, problem, it has been difficult to get this complex situation across to the public in "sound bites". Serious study on the part of the U.N. will be needed to undue all of the damage caused. However, it seems possible to make the following recommendations to the United Nations:
1. WHO should be mandated to review all radiation research and to recommend health based safety regulations. This mandate should be carried out by health professionals, including epidemiologists, oncologists, occupational and public health specialists, geneticists and paediatricians, (not linked with the nuclear industries or nuclear medicine) rather than other scientists.
2. The IAEA mandate to promote "peaceful nuclear technologies" should be withdrawn.
3. The IAEA mandate to safeguard the spread of nuclear weapons should be expanded to include monitoring the reduction and abolition of all nuclear weapons in the nuclear nations.
4. The UNSCEAR mandate needs to include the monitoring of increasing levels of background radiation and nuclear emissions from reactors and nuclear accidents. They should not be entrusted with estimating risk, which is the prerogative of the WHO.
5. Decisions relative to the safety of farm land, food and water ingestion and refugee relocation should be entrusted to WHO.
6. Investigation into the imprisonment of scientists and physicians who have spoken out on behalf of the public health relative to radiation exposure should be undertaken by a special raporteur of the Human Rights Commission in Geneva.
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Lithuania gets added EU aid for nuclear closure
REUTERS LITHUANIA:
December 17, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/19087/newsDate/17-Dec-2002/story.htm
VILNIUS - The European Union has offered Lithuania more money to help close its Soviet-era Ignalina nuclear plant under the Phare 2003 programme besides aid that the EU pledged last week when closing accession talks, the former ex-Communist state said on Monday.
"Up to 30 million euros of Phare 2003 support will be allocated in addition to the 285 million euros which the EU has committed for the special Ignalina programme in 2004-2006," the Lithuanian government's Europe Committee said in a statement, quoting a letter from the European Commission.
For the sake of EU entry, Lithuania has pledged to close one of Ignalina's reactors by 2005 and the other in 2009.
The EU considers the facility unsafe as it shares the same design as Ukraine's ill-fated Chernobyl plant.
It has agreed to guarantee in a special protocol to the country's accession treaty that the EU will continue to help finance the decommissioning work also after 2006.
Lithuania estimates the effort will cost more than 3 billion euros over a 30 year period, and so far has set aside 46 million euros of its own and amassed 216 million euros in an international donor fund.
The government said the Phare money was for waste management and storage projects.
In 2001, Ignalina accounted for 77.6 percent of all electricity produced in the ex-Soviet state, making it the world's most nuclear-reliant country.
Lithuania was one of 10 countries to complete EU accession negotiations on Friday, and expects to join the bloc in 2004.
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Ex-Iraqi Worker Tells of Fooling the Inspectors
Current U.N. Team Will Need a 'Defector' if It Wants to Discover the Truth, Exile Says
By Daniel Williams
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, December 17, 2002; Page A22
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A64105-2002Dec16?language=printer
LONDON, Dec. 16 -- Ahmed found it odd that he was constructing a giant vat for production of specialized proteins in an unmarked complex of buildings far off the main road south of Baghdad. But he knew enough not to ask too many questions.
In long years of service to the military-industrial ministries of President Saddam Hussein's government, Ahmed had learned not to inquire about the ultimate uses of the projects he worked on, first as a nuclear construction engineer during the 1980s and then on this seemingly innocuous pot.
"This was a regime that got used to hiding things. We didn't need to know, until it became obvious what it was about," he said.
In the case of the vat, Ahmed had his suspicions. He thought it was meant to create biological weapons material. He was apparently right. U.N. inspectors dismantled the equipment in the late 1990s, after a high-level defector tipped them off to its uses. "That's what the inspectors looking around Iraq now will need," he said, "a defector."
The Bush administration is pressing the current U.N. inspection team to ferry scientists out of Iraq for interrogation. Only then, administration officials say, will they get useful information on suspected Iraqi nuclear, chemical and biological arms programs. Failure of Hussein to permit scientists and their families to leave would, in the administration's view, constitute a breach of the latest U.N. resolution demanding open access to weapons sites.
Ahmed left Iraq in 1999 and lives in an Arab country. On a visit to London, he discussed his experiences in fooling earlier weapons inspectors, but asked to keep his real name out of print, because of fears for relatives still living in the country -- one reason he is an example of why the Bush administration says an interrogations-abroad program is necessary and why it might not work.
"Even if you take out their wives and kids, they have other relatives in Iraq -- brothers, cousins, mothers, fathers. Saddam can have them all killed," he said. "You would have to be able to provide the scientist and everyone else full security. They would have to believe that Saddam could not get his hands on them.
"Also, the scientists may not have anything to say. There is no new science in Iraq. The programs, if any, are in the hands of security people. Take me. I could say what I worked on, but I could not tell you the state of any program that went on after I stopped working. Only a few people have that kind of information, and they are well hidden."
Ahmed said he believes that the Iraqi government is continuing to develop biological and chemical weapons and also has become more adept at hiding the programs. "They have had lots of practice," he said.
Ahmed is no repentant defector. He proudly recounted his career in building nuclear facilities for Iraq's efforts to produce an atom bomb. "I felt that as an Arab, it was right that an Arab country have the bomb," he said. "Israel has one. So should we." He felt this way even though he said two of his cousins were executed by Hussein's security forces during the early 1980s for anti-government activities.
For all his pride, Ahmed was not fully trusted by his Iraqi overseers. No one was, he said. At first, he was told that his work was leading the way for nuclear-generated electric power. But eventually his bosses revealed the real goal.
In any case, after the Persian Gulf War in 1991, the nuclear arms project stopped, he said. U.N. inspectors came. Hiding the large infrastructure necessary to produce weapons-grade material was impossible.
Nonetheless, his supervisors warned Ahmed and his colleagues to "say little and answer only as narrowly as possible -- the specifics of our particular job, not what we knew about the whole program," he said. "We also had to sign a paper swearing that we had no documents in our private possession. If someone found out otherwise, they said we would be killed."
Ahmed said that he and other nuclear workers were given other jobs throughout Iraq, and eventually he landed at the Military Industrial Commission, which is responsible for constructing weapons factories and military installations. In 1995, he said he was ordered to help construct laboratories and vats at a place called Al Hakam, southwest of Baghdad.
U.N. inspectors were still looking for weapons programs, and they interviewed Ahmed three times, he said. "Each worker simply gave a narrow account of his job. In my case, I was just building a vat," he said.
Colleagues at other places told him they were ordered to bury equipment or to move it around on large trucks, sometimes for days at a time. "It was a giant chess game in which sometimes the pieces went underground," he said.
At Al Hakam, Ahmed said he asked his supervisor what the vats would be used for. Fermentation, he was told. When he asked what ingredient would be converted into what product, he was met with "aggressive silence." The Al Hakam facility was discovered only because of information provided by Hussein Kamel Hassan Majeed, a son-in-law of Hussein who defected to Jordan in the mid-1990s and conveyed information about the Iraqi biological weapons program.
Ahmed never knew whether the plant had produced a germ. All the time he was at Al Hakam, production was delayed by problems in procuring proper pumps and other equipment, he said.
He left in 1997 and applied to emigrate. The government, fearful of defectors, forced him to stay in Iraq for two more years. In that time, officials surmised, he would lose contact with the programs he worked on and have nothing to offer investigators abroad. "I was very careful to cut off all ties with my former work," he said. "I wanted to leave. I stayed completely isolated. I didn't want to know anything."
Although he has been out of Iraq almost three years, he keeps a low profile. "Who knows? Saddam might think I know something I don't and try to eliminate me," he said. "I will never feel safe."
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U.N. Hunts for Arms as U.S. Assails Iraq, Dollar Slides
Reuters
Tuesday, December 17, 2002
By Huda Majeed Saleh and Randall Mikkelsen
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A575-2002Dec17?language=printer
BAGHDAD/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.N. inspectors fanned out across Iraq on Tuesday to search for banned weapons after Washington found fault with an Iraqi arms disclosure and vowed to give Baghdad no second chances.
Iraqi officials said nuclear, biological and chemical experts set out at dawn from Baghdad for Mosul, nearly 250 miles north, and Radwan, in the Abu Ghuraib area, about nine miles west.
The United States and its ally Britain have signaled they are ready for war if Iraq breaches a tough U.N. Security Council resolution aimed at ensuring it has no weapons of mass destruction.
The inspectors have so far reported nothing untoward since they returned to Iraq last month after a four-year absence.
Secretary of State Colin Powell said on Monday that Washington would this week deliver its final verdict on the disclosures in documents that Iraq handed over to the United Nations on Dec. 7.
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said on Monday that Baghdad would get no second chance. Iraq denies having weapons of mass destruction and experts have been comparing the dossier with previous intelligence.
British officials were quoted as saying they were "very disappointed" by Baghdad's 12,000-page dossier. U.N. officials have said Iraq's declaration failed to account for all of its chemical and biological agents.
"We said at the very beginning that we approached it with skepticism and the information I have received so far is that that skepticism is well founded," Powell told a news conference. "There are problems with the declaration."
Powell did not elaborate, and it was unclear what steps Washington would take after delivering its verdict.
On Tuesday, the German newspaper Tageszeitung said the dossier showed the 80 German firms and institutes contributing to the Iraqi weapons programs since 1975 represented more than the combined total of all firms from other countries.
It said the United States was a distant second with about two dozen companies listed in the Iraqi documents.
VERDICT TOWARD "END OF WEEK"
A U.N. Security Council resolution adopted last month gave Iraq a last chance to come clean on its weapons programs or face serious consequences -- diplomatic language for war.
"We'll withhold making a final judgment or final statement until we have completed our analysis, completed our discussions with UNMOVIC (the U.N. arms inspectorate) and IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) and our colleagues on the permanent membership of the Security Council," Powell said.
"Then statements will be forthcoming, I expect, toward the end of the week after (UNMOVIC's Hans) Blix makes his presentation to the Security Council on Thursday."
U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said this month the Iraqi declaration on its banned weapons programs would not itself trigger a U.S. decision to go to war.
But at the White House, Fleischer said: "I think it was abundantly plain from the will of the United Nations -- this was Iraq's last chance to inform the world in an accurate, complete and full way what weapons of mass destruction they possessed."
Britain's newspaper the Sun said on Tuesday the Defense Ministry had begun a build-up for war by issuing Urgent Operational Requirement notices to makers of defense equipment and hiring cargo ships to take equipment to the Gulf.
"It is purely speculative. As the defense secretary, the prime minister and the foreign secretary have been saying for weeks, military action is neither imminent nor inevitable and diplomatic routes are still being pursued," a ministry spokeswoman told Reuters.
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Small Clues to the Big Picture in Baghdad
U.N. Inspections Run Gamut, From Top Secret to Seemingly Mundane
By Peter Baker
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, December 17, 2002; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A64225-2002Dec16?language=printer
ABU GHRAIB, Iraq -- U.N. inspectors, wearing baby-blue baseball caps and armbands, were roaming through a missile factory the other day when they came across a room with a couple of ominous warning signs posted outside: "Caution," the signs said. "Risk of Ionizing Radiation."
What's in there? the inspectors asked.
Just an X-ray machine, the plant director answered.
Show us, they said.
So, as the plant director recalled, he escorted the team into the room and put some metal into the machine. Out came the film familiar to anyone who has been X-rayed, he said.
In the three weeks they have been scouring Iraq for evidence of weapons of mass destruction, U.N. arms experts have been poking and prodding everywhere they can, testing seemingly innocent explanations, rifling through files, taking soil and water samples, measuring the air for radiation. At a distillery suspected of developing biological weapons, they smelled the alcohol. At a missile factory, they had a rocket test-fired to make sure it did not exceed range restrictions.
The inspectors in Iraq, whose ranks increased over the weekend to 105, have accelerated their schedule to full speed and now fan out early each morning to facilities throughout the Baghdad area and beyond, from a cement factory to a pesticide store, from the most secretive of military bases to government research centers. They visited 13 sites yesterday, their busiest day yet, as they worked to collect and collate information to report to the U.N. Security Council on the status of Iraq's banned weapons programs.
So far, the inspectors have disclosed few findings and drawn no conclusions. That is the work of higher-ups at U.N. headquarters in New York, where diplomats are keenly aware that the outcome of the searches could bring a decision by the Bush administration on whether to wage war on Iraq.
"It will take us some time to come up with a bigger picture," said Hiro Ueki, Baghdad spokesman for the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, or UNMOVIC.
But as they settle into a routine, the inspectors have begun focusing more attention on a handful of the most critical facilities. Nuclear experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency, for instance, have learned the route to the town of Tuwaitha all too well. About 15 miles southeast of Baghdad, it is home to the Tuwaitha Nuclear Research Center, the heart of Iraq's nuclear program.
Iraq has said it halted its nuclear weapons development program a decade ago. Inspectors have combed through the sprawling Tuwaitha facility six times so far to inventory nuclear materials, most recently on Sunday when they took samples of water and silt.
Inspectors have also spent considerable time at the Qaqaa complex not far from Tuwaitha, where they have searched for indications of nuclear or chemical weapons. They first showed up there on Nov. 30 to remove an air sampler, and then returned five more times, including yesterday, to examine an explosives production plant and a sulfuric acid plant.
More and more, inspectors are choosing to return to facilities they had already inspected. Most of the inspections yesterday, for example, were repeat visits.
However, since making a visit to a presidential palace to test their ability to get in, they have not gone to any of the dozens of others, sticking at least for now to more conventional and less provocative locations.
To avoid becoming too predictable, however, the inspectors have tried to maintain the advantage of surprise. Over the weekend, for instance, nuclear specialists showed up after dark at the Muahaweel military base south of Baghdad.
So far, they have encountered none of the intransigence that marked their predecessors' experience in Iraq during the 1990s, which led to their withdrawal in 1998 and a subsequent four-day U.S.-British bombing campaign. Iraqi officials have kept to their word in opening the gates when the U.N. teams arrive. The one time a lone duty officer did not have a key, the inspectors sealed rooms and returned the next day to find no sign of tampering.
Recognizing that demonstrating openness may be the best way to undercut international support for war, Iraqi officials urge foreign journalists to cover the inspections each day instead of turning to another subject.
"The weapons inspections carried out so far have uncovered the lies of Britain and the United States, and Iraq will continue cooperation with the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission to ensure the success of its mission," Gen. Hossam Mohammed Amin, head of the National Monitoring Directorate, the Iraqi liaison to the United Nations, told the official Al-Iraq newspaper last week.
To test that further, the chief U.N. weapons inspector, Hans Blix, has asked Iraq to produce a list of scientists associated with its weapons programs by the end of the year, possibly so they can be interviewed outside the country. During an interview on Lebanese television yesterday, Amin reiterated that Iraq would comply.
The inspection process has taken the U.N. experts far and wide. Not long ago, they showed up at the gate of the Al Abraj distillery, which produces about 100 cases of gin, whiskey and arrack a day. About six inspectors toured the factory, 12 miles south of Baghdad, checking out the bottling conveyor belts and the steam cleaners and the storerooms filled with labels, cardboard cartons and jugs of fruit flavors.
Alber Poulus Younan, the plant director, pulled a rubber hose from the machines, let a liquid that was 96 percent alcohol spill over his hand and held it up for the inspectors to smell, as he did again yesterday for a couple of visiting journalists. Whatever else it might be, a look around left no doubt that the Christian-owned Al Abraj produces many bottles of booze.
"It's a factory for drink," Younan said. "They're looking for something special. I don't know what it is."
The answer came in what the inspectors showed most interest in -- the fermenters. Five giant, rusting 40-cubic-yard vats sat in a building with labels that were attached to the vats by other inspectors four years ago. The new inspectors checked the bar codes against their records and moved on.
Fermenters can be critical to the weaponization of such biological pathogens as anthrax. But Younan and the distillery's owner, Shakir Easa, laughed at the notion that their machines produce killer spores. "It's funny, because any simple citizen of the world comes to this place and he can tell it's just an alcohol factory," Easa said.
Another team of inspectors spent nearly three hours last weekend at a missile factory in Abu Ghraib, 25 miles west of Baghdad. The plant director, Hussein Mohammed, told the inspectors that he produces only al-Samoud liquid-propellant rockets that travel less than the 93-mile limit imposed by U.N. sanctions, contrary to assertions by the U.S. government.
With the sound of clanging metal and the odor of industrial cleaning fluid in the air, men in white smocks and women in head scarves stared at the inspectors as they examined the 18 buildings surrounded by a fence topped with concertina wire. Hanging above them in the courtyard was a massive tile portrait of President Saddam Hussein.
Mohammed said he had no warning the inspectors were coming. "Even as they were arriving, I learned they were here," he said. But neither, he added, did he have anything to hide. "We want the inspectors to show that we're not making any such weapons and we hope that the Security Council will take a decision to lift the blockade against the Iraqi people," he said.
-------- korea
DIPLOMACY
Japan Says Nuclear Effort in Korea Merits Hard Line
December 17, 2002
By STEVEN R. WEISMAN
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/17/international/asia/17DIPL.html
WASHINGTON, Dec. 16 - The United States won a commitment from Japan today to continue taking a hard line toward North Korea that would bar any bargaining or talk of economic incentives until the government in Pyongyang agreed to shut its nuclear weapons program.
Taking a break from their meeting at the State Department with Japan's senior Defense and Foreign Ministry officials, both Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz repeated the administration's policy of last week, that it was up to North Korea to ease tensions in the region.
The American and Japanese comments amounted to the latest rebuff to appeals by North Korea for negotiation on the nuclear issue. Today North Korea again called for a nonaggression treaty with the United States, saying it was the only way to prevent war on the Korean Peninsula. Secretary Powell dismissed the plea.
In reiterating its call for a treaty with the United States, political experts say, North Korea could be seeking to influence the outcome of South Korea's presidential election, which takes place on Thursday.
South Korean news reports are saying the race has become too close to call. The governing party candidate, Roh Moo Hyun, has urged continued aid and engagement with North Korea, in line with the so-called sunshine policy of his mentor, President Kim Dae Jung, who is barred by law from seeking a second term. Although the publication of polls is banned in the final phase of the campaign, it has been widely reported that Mr. Roh's narrow lead has shrunk in the wake of the perceived North Korean belligerence.
Mr. Roh's main opponent, Lee Hoi Chang, of the conservative Grand National Party, has sought to soothe concerns that his approach toward North Korea would be dangerously confrontational. The 67-year-old Mr. Lee said of Mr. Roh, "The future of the Korean Peninsula will be perilous if we elect as president the candidate who is the inheritor of the failed sunshine policy and who will continue sending cash aid to North Korea despite its nuclear arms development."
As for Japan, it has officially declared agreement with President Bush on the approach to North Korea, but many voices of dissent exist within and outside the Japanese government. Some Japanese, and also some South Koreans, fear that a confrontation could backfire and deepen the crisis over North Korea's nuclear programs.
All talk of differences between the United States and Japan were dismissed today. Asked about the differences between the countries, Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi rejected the premise of the question. "Actually, between our two governments, there is no difference - no fundamental difference of position, absolutely none," Ms. Kawaguchi said.
Secretary Powell smiled and added: "I agree completely with my colleague. Our positions are identical."
But there have been clear disagreements since October, when it was first disclosed that North Korea was embarking on a nuclear weapons program, despite promises it made in a 1994 accord with the United States and other countries in the region.
At first, for example, Japan joined with South Korea, Russia and China in quietly arguing that it would be better to continue economic assistance to North Korea while resolving the nuclear crisis.
American allies in the region, too, are said to lean toward upholding another part of the 1994 accord - helping North Korea build two light-water nuclear reactors that could supply some of its energy needs without a risk that they could be converted to nuclear weapons production.
The United States wants to cut off all such aid, except for food assistance to civilians, to protest North Korea's nuclear weapons program.
Asian diplomats say the next pivotal moment on North Korea will come after presidential elections in South Korea on Thursday.
Some in the Bush administration say that, without taking sides, they hope Mr. Lee, the hawk, will win the election.
By the same token, they want to encourage the Japanese to stand up to North Korea and not give in to its demands for more economic benefits in return for halting its weapons program.
The Japanese minister of state for defense, Shigeru Ishiba, was also at the meeting in Washington today.
He and Ms. Kawaguchi said they also favored proceeding on a program to develop a missile defense system that would shield Japan and other countries from missile attacks from North Korea or other countries.
They also said they supported United States policy on Iraq, particularly on returning to the United Nations Security Council if the inspections imposed by the Council are rebuffed by Baghdad.
Secretary Powell declined to speculate on how Japan might help in any military effort against Iraq. In the past, Japan has shied from participation in direct military action. But in the Persian Gulf war, in 1991, Japan contributed several billion dollars to the war effort waged by the United States and its allies.
Japan has continuously asserted that its postwar Constitution, written by Americans during the occupation, bars the use of its armed forces in anything but direct self-defense.
"We are in the closest coordination," Secretary Powell said, "and it is up to the government of Japan, the people of Japan, to determine how they might respond in the face of a mandate from the international community to do something about Iraq's lack of cooperation."
----
China ships North Korea ingredient for nuclear arms
By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
December 17, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20021217-407202.htm
North Korea has purchased a large shipment of chemicals from China that can be used to make nuclear-weapons fuel, U.S. intelligence officials say.
North Korean procurement agents succeeded in buying 20 tons of tributyl phosphate, known as TBP, a key chemical used to extract material for nuclear bombs from spent nuclear fuel, said officials familiar with intelligence reports of the transfer.
The officials said the chemical also can be used in commercial processes, such as making plastics, ink and paint.
U.S. intelligence agencies, however, believe North Korea will use the TBP for its plutonium-based nuclear-weapons program, based on sensitive intelligence information, the officials said.
The chemical is used in a process known as plutonium-uranium extraction, or purex, which produces plutonium from spent reactor fuel.
North Korea announced last week that it planned to restart its plutonium reactors at Yongbyon.
"The fact that North Korea is importing tributyl phosphate right now is rather ominous," said Gary Milhollin, director of the private Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control. "It's evidence that North Korea plans to extract more plutonium."
The chemical also can be used to prepare uranium for the weapons process, Mr. Milhollin said in an interview.
North Korea has a large supply of spent reactor fuel that is under international surveillance. The reprocessing of the spent fuel means Pyongyang could produce more bombs "in fairly short order, a matter of months," he said.
The TBP transfer, which happened earlier this month, highlights the Chinese government's failure to control the export of goods related to nuclear-weapons production.
The disclosure of the transfer also followed appeals from senior Bush administration officials in recent months for Beijing's help in halting North Korea's nuclear-weapons program.
The transfer itself is an indication that China's government, contrary to some public statements, is unwilling to support U.S. efforts to resolve the North Korean nuclear problem, said administration security officials.
Chinese President Jiang Zemin and Russian President Vladimir Putin said during a summit in Beijing this month that both favored a nuclear-free Korean peninsula.
Mr. Jiang also said during an October meeting with President Bush in Crawford, Texas, that China favored a nuclear-free Korean peninsula, but stopped short of condemning Pyongyang's nuclear program.
The two presidents agreed at the summit to discuss curbing the spread of weapons of mass destruction.
However, senior administration officials said China continues to export nuclear, chemical and biological weapons material and missile goods, despite claims of curbing exports by Chinese companies to rogue states or unstable regions.
White House National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice told a visiting Chinese general last week that Beijing's help in stopping the North Korean nuclear program would be important to U.S.-China relations.
North Korea's government revealed to a State Department official in October that it was secretly developing uranium-enrichment capability to make fuel for nuclear weapons.
Pyongyang then announced it planned to restart three reactors at the Yongbyon nuclear complex that were shut down under a 1994 agreement.
White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer told reporters yesterday that he did not believe China was helping North Korea's nuclear program and that Beijing was being helpful in U.S. efforts to curb North Korea's drive for nuclear arms.
"China is working with the United States to make certain that we can resolve the situation with North Korea peacefully and diplomatically, and that is being done in concert with South Korea, and Japan and Russia, as well," Mr. Fleischer said.
A White House spokesman had no comment on the Chinese-North Korean chemical transfer.
The TBP purchase is expected to lead to sanctions on the Chinese and North Korean companies involved in the sale. U.S. officials said the company was located in Dalian, a Chinese seaport, but they did not name the company.
U.S. intelligence officials first disclosed North Korea's effort to purchase tributyl phosphate in China to The Washington Times earlier this month.
Henry Sokolski, head of the private Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, said the transfer of the nuclear arms-related chemical shows the Chinese "don't understand how important this is to us."
"If China thinks this is a good way to restrain North Korean nuclear activities, they need to talk to us," Mr. Sokolski said.
----
U.S. dismisses war concerns
By Nicholas Kralev
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
December 17, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20021217-273132.htm
The United States yesterday dismissed North Korean assertions that the Korean peninsula was on the verge of war, saying that if such concerns existed, they could result only from Pyongyang's behavior.
Although the Bush administration will not resume bilateral contacts until the North dismantles its nuclear-weapons program, it has given Japan a green light to continue its dialogue with the reclusive state.
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell called the situation after Pyongyang's decision last week to restart a nuclear reactor it shut down eight years ago "difficult" and "dangerous."
But, he said, "the United States has no plans to attack North Korea, and I see no indication that North Korea, however concerned it might be, is taking any action that would suggest we are on the verge of war from them attacking South.
"So if there is any concern about a war, that concern has been raised by North Korea's actions," Mr. Powell said after he and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz met with Japan's foreign and defense ministers at the State Department.
The only way to step back from the situation is for North Korea to suspend its uranium-enrichment program, which it first acknowledged in early October, and for the country to reverse its decision to reopen its 5-megawatt reactor in Yongbyon, Mr. Powell said.
"Then we can determine how to move forward with respect to dialogue," he said. "The United States will not enter into dialogue in response to threats or broken commitments, and we will not bargain or offer inducements for North Korea to live up to the treaties and agreements it has signed."
But in a joint statement after the meeting with the Japanese ministers, the administration said it "reaffirmed" that the United States "has always been open to dialogue in principle," noting that Japan-North Korea talks that started a few months ago "serve as important channels to resolve security issues."
Asked about that obvious difference between U.S. and Japanese policy, Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi said there were "no fundamental differences" between the two countries. She repeated Mr. Powell's warning that Pyongyang must stop its nuclear activities.
The Bush administration, reluctant to undertake significant steps in its dispute with North Korea before South Korea's presidential election Thursday, is urging its allies and other regional powers to step up diplomatic pressure on Pyongyang.
Mr. Powell said the international community, "including Russia, China and the European Union, is united in calling for a denuclearized Korean peninsula." Moscow and Beijing are seen as particularly important because of their influence on Kim Jong-il's regime.
Russia refused to put pressure on North Korea yesterday and said it "will not do so in the future."
"History has shown that pressure on North Korea has pitiful results, rather than solving a problem," Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Losyukov told the Interfax news agency. "We are not going to unite with anyone to pressure North Korea. This is absolutely ruled out."
The North Korean Foreign Ministry said Thursday that the government was reopening a nuclear-power plant and resuming construction of two reactors to compensate for its recent loss of monthly fuel-oil shipments from the United States.
Last month, the U.S.-led Korean Peninsula Development Organization (KEDO) suspended the annual shipment of 500,000 metric tons of oil to the North.
In addition to the heavy fuel oil, the KEDO was building two light-water reactors in Kumho, in the country's northeast, to compensate Pyongyang for closing the power plant, which was believed to be providing fuel for an atomic-weapons program.
-------- missile defense
U.S. to Begin Deploying Missile Defense System
Reuters
Tuesday, December 17, 2002
By Charles Aldinger
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A875-2002Dec17?language=printer
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush has ordered the U.S. military to begin deploying a national missile defense system with 10 interceptor rockets at a base in Alaska by 2004, administration officials said on Tuesday.
The decision, which comes despite last week's failure of an anti-missile test over the Pacific Ocean, was expected to be announced by the White House and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld later in the day, the officials told Reuters.
Defense officials, who asked not to be identified, confirmed a report in The Washington Times that Bush was going ahead with an ambitious schedule to field 10 ground-based interceptors at Fort Greeley, Alaska, by 2004 and an additional 10 interceptors by 2005 or 2006.
Another Bush administration official said the interceptors could also possibly be deployed at Vandenberg Air Force base in California.
"It's the first deployment of the missile defense system," said the administration official, who asked not to be named. "We're talking about deployment in 2004."
Erecting such a shield is the Pentagon's single most expensive development program, likely to cost hundreds of billions of dollars over coming decades.
Last Wednesday, the United States suffered its third failure in eight test attempts to shoot down a long-range dummy warhead in space over the Pacific Ocean, and scientific critics of the multibillion-dollar program have charged it is not yet mature enough to begin deployment.
But Bush and Rumsfeld have stressed the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and missile technology have sharply increased the need for such a defense against attack from "rogue states" such as Iran, Iraq and North Korea, especially in the wake of devastating attacks on America using hijacked airliners on Sept. 11, 2001.
WITHDREW FROM ABM TREATY
In a first step toward setting up a missile defense umbrella, the United States in June withdrew from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty that banned such systems.
The decision to begin deploying a national missile defense, which has been criticized by Russia and China, follows North Korea's announcement this month that it will proceed with a controversial program to develop nuclear weapons.
The Fort Greeley site would allow the U.S. military to try and intercept any attack by long-range missiles being developed by the North.
The initial deployment would provide the United States -- which has been examining several ways to shoot down medium- and long-range missiles in flight -- with a limited defense against such attack.
In London, British officials said they had received a written request from the United States concerning its planned missile defense shield but had not yet responded.
Washington wants Britain to upgrade an early warning radar system at Fylingdales in northern England to enhance the program to protect both the United States and allies from attack.
Bush had wanted to put an Alaska-based "test bed" initially with five missile silos -- and rudimentary operational capabilities against real attack -- in place by October 2004.
The test bed was the first leg of a planned layered shield against missile attack. Other Pentagon projects involve overlapping systems that could be based at sea, in space and aboard laser-firing modified Boeing 747 aircraft.
For each of the past two fiscal years alone, Bush requested and the U.S. Congress approved $7.8 billion in research, development and testing funds.
----
Bush approves missile defense
By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
December 17, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20021217-10394100.htm
President Bush has decided to begin deploying by 2004 a nationwide defense system against ballistic missiles, The Washington Times has learned.
Mr. Bush is expected to announce the decision today, with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and other defense officials then describing the details of the deployment plan.
The decision comes a year after the United States withdrew from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty to allow more effective research and development of a system to shoot down long-range and short-range missiles. It also fulfills a presidential campaign promise Mr. Bush made in May 2000.
It marks the first time since the 1960s that the U.S. government will field an anti-missile system. President Reagan first announced the major shift toward strategic defenses and away from offensive nuclear missiles in 1983.
Until now, the Pentagon was investigating whether various methods of shooting down incoming missiles were feasible. Based on the past year of work on missile defenses, Mr. Bush decided to go forward with the limited system.
According to a senior administration official, the deployment plan calls for fielding 10 ground-based interceptor missiles at Fort Greeley, Alaska, by 2004 and an additional 10 interceptors by 2005 or 2006.
The system will provide the United States with a limited defense against long-range missile threats, primarily those posed by rogue states. Recent missile tests and U.S. intelligence reports have pinpointed North Korea, Iran and Iraq as the likeliest nations to pose such a threat. The interceptors will be guided to targets by a global network of radars and sensors that will identify and track long-range missiles.
To deal with short-range and medium-range missiles, the Pentagon plans to deploy an updated version of the Navy's Standard Missile-3 on ships equipped with the Aegis battle management system.
American missile-defense plans have been criticized by Russia and China, most recently at a meeting earlier this month between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Jiang Zemin.
The decision comes amid heightened tensions about North Korea, which announced recently that it is considering lifting its moratorium on missile flight tests. Pyongyang surprised U.S. intelligence agencies by flight-testing a long-range Taepo Dong missile in August 1998. North Korea also revealed that it had been secretly developing uranium-based nuclear weapons and would restart nuclear reactors that had been shut under a 1994 agreement.
Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said in an Oct. 24 speech that "moving forward on missile defense, particularly by taking advantage of new technological opportunities, is an essential part of a strategy to provide the range of capabilities necessary to defend against the broad spectrum of new threats and challenges that we will confront in the 21st century."
Mr. Wolfowitz said the threat from short-range missiles "is here with us today" and that the threat from long-range missiles "may still be a few years away."
By withdrawing from the ABM Treaty, "we may now be in a position to be able to respond before that threat emerges," he said.
Preparatory construction at the first missile-defense site at Fort Greeley began in June, and other elements of the missile-defense test site will be built beginning in 2003.
In the past year, the Pentagon has begun conducting tests with short-range missile-defense systems that were prohibited by the ABM Treaty and has built and tested mobile and sea-based sensors that detect and track missiles.
"Our missile-defense program since 2001 has demonstrated that missile technology, in particular hit-to-kill technology, actually works," Mr. Wolfowitz said. "We actually can hit a bullet with a bullet."
A recent missile-defense test failed, however, on Dec. 11, when an interceptor rocket did not separate from its booster. Four earlier tests were successful.
Mr. Bush announced on Dec. 13, 2001, that the United States was withdrawing from the ABM Treaty.
"I have concluded the ABM Treaty hinders our government's ability to develop ways to protect our people from future terrorist or rogue state missile attacks," Mr. Bush said at the time.
Critics said the treaty withdrawal would lead to a new strategic-arms race, although the reaction from Russia and China has not gone beyond verbal criticism.
Mr. Wolfowitz said in his speech that the war against terrorism should not mean that the United States should stop developing missile defenses.
"It is clear that potential adversaries will pursue any means they can to exploit the vulnerabilities of a free society," he said.
"They will exploit the freedom and privacy rights in the West. They will exploit our reluctance to kill innocent civilians in time of war. And they most certainly will seek to exploit our near total vulnerability to ballistic missile and cruise missile attack."
--------
Bush Orders Military to Build Limited Missile Defense by 2004
December 17, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Bush-Missile-Defense.html
WASHINGTON -- President Bush said Tuesday he will begin deploying a limited system to defend the nation against ballistic missiles by 2004.
Though the first parts of the system will be put into use while more advanced technology is still being developed, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld said it will likely stop "a relatively small number of incoming ballistic missiles, which is better than nothing."
As a candidate, Bush promised to build an anti-missile shield, and earlier this year he pulled out of an anti-ballistic missile treaty to advance the plan. Tuesday, he cited the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on America as evidence that the country faces "unprecedented threats" and needs the anti-missile shield.
"When I came to office, I made a commitment to transform America's national security strategy and defense capabilities to meet the threats of the 21st century," Bush said in a prepared statement. "Today I am pleased to announce we will take another important step in countering these threats by beginning to field missile defense capabilities to protect the United States as well as our friends and allies."
He called the initial stage "modest," but said, "These capabilities will add to America's security and serve as a starting point for improved and expanded capabilities later as further progress is made in researching and developing missile defense technologies and in light of changes in the threat."
The plan calls for 10 ground-based interceptor missiles at Fort Greely, Alaska, by 2004 and an additional 10 interceptors by 2005 or 2006, defense officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Bush said the "initial capabilities" will also include sea-based interceptors and sensors based on land, at sea and in space.
Asked at a Pentagon press conference how he could be confident in fielding a system considering some recent failures in testing, Rumsfeld said, "most things don't just arrive fully developed."
"The way to think about the missile defense program is that ... it will evolve over time."
Rumsfeld used as an example the Predator unmanned aerial vehicle, the spy plane that became a big asset in the war in Afghanistan although it was still in testing. The Predator allowed troops to gather intelligence without endangering pilots and ones fitted with missiles allowed the CIA to carry out attacks without endangering their agents.
Rep. Duncan Hunter, the likely next chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, lauded the decision to proceed on missile defense and said Congress would likely approve additional money. He said an extra $1.5 billion would likely be needed over the next two years for the program that was budgeted for $7.8 billion in 2003.
"Today, the United States cannot stop a single ballistic missile headed for an American city," said Hunter, R-Calif., who chairs Armed Services subcommittee on military research and development. "The consequences of such an attack would be devastating, and the danger continues to grow as nations such as North Korea, Iraq, and Iran continue to develop, purchase, and sell advanced ballistic missile technologies."
But David Sirota, spokesman for Democrats on the House Appropriations Committee, questioned Bush's priorities.
"If George Bush thinks we are so flush with cash that we can afford billions to deploy a technology that might not even work, then why has he repeatedly rejected funding for basic security like border patrol, Coast Guard and immigration services that we know is desperately needed to prevent another September 11th?" he said.
Bush's announcement came six days after the latest test of the system failed when an interceptor rocket did not separate from its booster rocket and destroy a Minuteman II intercontinental ballistic missile as planned.
Three of eight tests of the interceptors have been judged failures by the military.
The initial Bush plan is more limited than the Strategic Defense Initiative envisioned by President Reagan in 1983 that came to be known as "Star Wars."
Still, Bush expanded the program significantly from the ground-based plan pursued by President Clinton by also ordering research and testing on sea-based and space-based systems.
The Pentagon has begun conducting tests with short-range missile-defense systems that were prohibited by the ABM Treaty and has built and tested mobile and sea-based sensors to track missiles.
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said the missile defense timing had nothing to do with North Korea's recent admission that it had a secret program to enrich uranium to make nuclear weapons. But, he noted, Bush cited North Korea as a threat when he promised during his campaign to build an anti-missile safety net.
The United States has asked to use a radar complex in northern England as part of a global missile defense shield, the British government said Tuesday. American officials have also asked NATO member Denmark if it can upgrade a radar station at an American Air Force base in Greenland as part of the system.
--------
A Look at Missile Threats Against U.S.
December 17, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Missile-Defense-Glance.html
Only Russia and China can strike the continental United States with intercontinental ballistic missiles launched from their territory. Russia has a large force of such missiles, far too many for any limited missile defense system to overcome.
China has a small ICBM force but is expected to increase its arsenal in the coming years, according to U.S. intelligence estimates.
Several countries, most notably North Korea, are developing long-range missiles, according to intelligence officials. North Korea is the closest; its Taepo Dong 2 long-range missile may be ready for flight testing.
U.S. officials also fear that North Korea will provide its missile technology to other potentially hostile nations.
Countries with a land-based ICBM force capable of striking targets in the United States:
--Russia: 700 SS-18, SS-19 and SS-25 missiles, carrying 3,000 warheads. Russia is retiring missiles and warheads.
--China: 20 DF-5 missiles, expected to expand three or four times by 2015.
Countries pursuing long-range ballistic missiles:
--North Korea: Developing Taepo Dong II, capable of reaching Alaska, Hawaii, possibly the western United States. Could be ready for flight testing within a short time.
--Iran: May be planning a Shahab-5 ICBM, but U.S. intelligence officials do not believe Iran will be able to test this or another ICBM until around 2010. Foreign assistance, particularly from North Korea, could speed this development.
--Iraq: No specific ICBM programs have been described. U.S. intelligence officials believe Iraq, if left unhindered, could have an ICBM in development by 2015, but some believe even this is unlikely. Foreign assistance could speed this development.
--India: U.S. intelligence officials believe India could convert its space rockets to an ICBM within two years, but there is no information India plans to do so.
Sources: National Intelligence Council, Defense Department.
-------- russia
Russia says no violations in Iranian nuclear plans
REUTERS RUSSIA:
December 17, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/19090/newsDate/17-Dec-2002/story.htm
MOSCOW - Russia, which is helping Iran build a nuclear power plant, said on Sunday Tehran was violating no international rules by developing two other nuclear sites despite U.S. fears they could be used for military aims.
Atomic Energy Minister Alexander Rumyantsev was also quoted as telling Itar-Tass news agency in an interview that efforts should be made to persuade North Korea to ease its tough stand on resuming its nuclear programme.
Russia has faced heavy U.S. criticism for helping Iran build a reactor at a nuclear plant at Bushehr but Rumyantsev said Moscow was proceeding with the project. He dismissed as unfounded U.S. suggestions last week that two other facilities under construction could enable Iran to produce nuclear weapons.
He told the agency Iran had never concealed its intention to build a complete nuclear cycle and the facilities "do not violate any commitments" the country had undertaken.
Tehran has denied U.S. assertions that the two sites near the towns of Natanz and Arak were of a type that could be used for making a nuclear weapon. It says it is determined to meet its growing demand for electricity with nuclear power.
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said the facilities, seen in commercial satellite photographs, had generated "grave concerns". Washington has labelled Iran as part of an "axis of evil" bent on developing weapons of mass destruction.
But Rumyantsev was quoted as saying: "You cannot assume anything from the published photographs."
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said it had been discussing the sites with Tehran since August, with Iranian authorities agreeing to submit to IAEA monitoring.
Rumyantsev said Russia had no connection with either facility, but predicted that Washington could increase pressure on Moscow to halt its participation in the Bushehr project.
"We have no intention of doing so, as there is no proof that we are committing any violations of any sort," he told Tass.
Rumyantsev's press service told Tass Moscow's continued participation in the Bushehr project was contingent on Iranian assurances that all spent fuel would be returned to Russia - a demand advanced by U.S. experts.
The press service said it was uncertain whether Russia would pursue plans to build up to five more reactors at the site.
On North Korea, which said this week it intended to restart a nuclear reactor shut down under a 1994 deal with the United States, Rumyantsev said attempts should be made to discuss the matter with Pyongyang's secretive leadership.
"North Korea has taken a specific stand, which has to be understood with efforts made to tone it down," he told Tass.
Russia, he said, had ceased all nuclear cooperation with Pyongyang in 1993 and had no intention of reviving it.
"If North Korea decides to seek our help, this is possible only through the IAEA," he told Tass.
-------- ukraine
Scare Tactics On the Rise In Ukraine
Kuchma Government Presses Critics in Legislature, Media
By Sharon LaFraniere
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, December 17, 2002; Page A20
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A64498-2002Dec16?language=printer
KIEV, Ukraine -- Having built a multimillion-dollar enterprise over the last decade by making and selling shingles and tar paper, Volodmyr Shandra knows all there is to know about the business of roofing.
It's in the business of politics -- he is a new member of parliament and a critic of Ukraine's struggling president, Leonid Kuchma -- that the roof has come crashing down around his head.
The 39-year-old businessman was elected to the legislature in April as a member of the Our Ukraine faction, the leading opposition to Kuchma's increasingly autocratic rule. In July, he said, a friend passed along a message from a top official in Kuchma's government: If Shandra did not join the pro-Kuchma lawmakers, his factory would find itself in deep trouble.
Within a month, he said, a cadre of masked officers toting machine guns showed up at the factory in the western Ukraine city of Slavuta. They seized a dozen computers and 3,000 pounds of documents.
The factory was all but paralyzed during the critical summer construction season, he said, wreaking havoc with its clients and dealers. Now it faces a criminal investigation for supposed financial improprieties.
"I never imagined these things could happen," Shandra said.
Muscling legislators is just the most visible of a variety of hardball tactics that critics say have intensified here as Kuchma's government sinks deeper into scandal and loses popular support. Other methods include retaliating against insufficiently loyal businessmen and independent judges, and cowing the media.
"You get a sense of sustained pressure, across the board," said Markian Bilynskyj, director of field operations for the U.S.-Ukraine Foundation. Democracy in Ukraine, he said, "has boundaries delineated by the people in power. Democracy is something that is to be permitted and distributed in doses."
Kuchma, who is scheduled to leave office in two years, says Ukraine is on its way to becoming a modern European democracy and just needs time to develop. His aides deny the government engages in censorship or uses law enforcement and the courts for political ends.
For the moment, the strong-arm tactics are helping Kuchma maintain his grip after opposition forces managed their largest show of strength to date, drawing tens of thousands of protesters to the streets in September. Following what critics describe as a campaign of threats and hefty bribes, a razor-slim majority of legislators last week pledged to work with the executive branch.
Television news coverage of Kuchma is now relentlessly positive: When he was humiliated at last month's NATO summit in Prague, for instance, Ukrainian media painted it as a diplomatic victory for the 64-year-old leader.
But some analysts say the real beneficiary of Kuchma's crackdown is its architect: Viktor Medvedchuk, the president's new and increasingly powerful chief of staff and one of Ukraine's richest oligarchs.
"There is a real sense that this administration is being run by Medvedchuk, and that he is performing a kind of dress rehearsal for when he becomes president," said Bilynskyj. "I don't think Kuchma is controlling all of this. But he is not stopping it." The trend worries Western leaders, who once dreamed that Ukrainian democracy would flourish. With nearly 50 million people, a territory the size of France and an arsenal that includes missile and nuclear technology, Ukraine was judged worthy of grooming for a democratic future. It has been one of the top recipients of U.S. aid and political support.
But that may be changing. The United States has given Kuchma the cold shoulder since determining this fall that he signed off on a clandestine plan to sell powerful Kolchuga aircraft tracking stations to Iraq in clear violation of an international embargo. U.S. Ambassador Carlos Pascual said last month that the Kolchuga affair and other disagreements have led to "a crisis of confidence" in Ukraine's top leadership. Kuchma denies approving the sale.
His administration is powerless to silence American grumbling. But the growing list of incidents involving political opponents, businessmen and journalists suggests domestic critics sometimes pay a steep price.
Take Serhiy Danylov, whose printing house last February published 900,000 copies of a book about Yulia Timoshenko, a leader of the opposition to Kuchma. Now on his press is another book, documenting what he says is the punishment tax authorities have meted out since then: more than 100 visits to his office and warnings to his clients. His business nearly ruined, he has cut his workforce from 304 employees to 25.
"I can say that the [Soviet] KGB [secret police] in 1988 was much kinder than the tax administration of Ukraine today," he said.
Or consider Yevhen Chervonenko, a legislator who spent the last decade building an international trucking firm. He said his support for Viktor Yushchenko, head of Our Ukraine and the country's most popular politician, has so far cost the firm at least $1 million in business after tax police this year froze bank accounts and seized trucks.
"I was an adviser of the president. I was a minister," he said. "When I was there, they did not touch me. But since I began to support Yushchenko . . . I am being told I will lose everything."
Yushchenko says two dozen companies with financial links to legislators from his party have been targeted.
If harassing legislators seems brazen, however, even some of Kuchma's advisers said they were stunned when police arrested Konstantin Grigorishin, a 37-year-old Russian businessman with more than $370 million invested in Ukraine's energy, metals and machine-building industries.
In an interview in Moscow, Grigorishin said officers pulled him out of his car after he left a restaurant in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, on Oct. 12, planted narcotics in his jacket and stuffed a gun in his back pocket. "They even buttoned the pocket," he said.
He blamed his arrest on Kuchma's aide, Medvedchuk, and Hryhory Surkis, who together with Medvedchuk leads the Social Democratic Party, the political arm of a business clan that controls much of Ukraine's wealth. For the previous two years, Grigorishin said, he had been trying to end a business partnership with the two men because of their financial demands.
Last summer, he said, they asked for $50 million to finance the party's parliamentary campaign. When he refused, he said, the two systematically took over his Ukrainian companies, one by one.
"I was told, 'We won't let you do business in the Ukraine,' " he said. "Surkis said, 'We will put you in the trunk of a car, drive you to the woods and bury you alive.' Medvedchuk said they would put me in jail."
Medvedchuk has denied any involvement in the businessman's arrest, saying he never interferes in law enforcement cases. Surkis dismissed Grigorishin's allegations as nonsense.
Grigorishin was freed after 10 days in jail after Viktor Pinchuk, his friend and Kuchma's son-in-law, intervened. A Kiev court later found his arrest and detention illegal.
Lawyers who have fought Kuchma's government in court say that although a fair verdict is possible, judges increasingly fear they will be penalized for political disloyalty. Yuriy Vasilenko, an appeals court judge, estimates that only 10 out of about 200 judges in Kiev are truly independent. "As soon as a judge takes an independent stand, a complaint will be filed with a judicial directorate or another body," he said.
Former district court judge Mykola Zamkovenko considers himself a prime example.
In March 2001, he released Yulia Timoshenko from jail, striking down fraud and bribery charges brought by Kuchma's prosecutors. Two months later, police illegally raided his house.
In July, Kuchma fired him for incompetence. He now faces criminal charges of abusing his position and forgery.
"When I was making the decisions they liked, they were silent," Zamkovenko said. Now, he said, "They are using me to scare off the other judges."
Television journalists say they -- and their stations, which are mostly controlled by pro-Kuchma oligarchs -- also face repercussions if they do not follow the government's increasingly strict line. While certain topics were always taboo, now opposition leaders such as Yushchenko are simply banned from the air, said Andriy Shevchenko, a leader of the new union of journalists.
And for the first time, permitted topics are now outlined in faxes from the presidential administration. Kiev Post, an independent, English-language newspaper, published a copy of the government's media directive from Sept. 13, three days before a planned opposition protest that turned into one of the largest ever held here.
"Please cover the day's events in the following order in all this evening's news bulletins," it said. High on the list was a judge's ban on holding the protest in Kiev's center and a union leader's recommendation that workers not participate.
Serhiy Vasyliev, Kuchma's aide for information, said the directives are only suggestions. "Some journalists interpret them as instructions because they come from the president," he said recently. "But that is wrong."
Shevchenko said the proof is on the screen. For instance, he said, no television network has aired a single minute of now notorious tapes on which hours of Kuchma's private conversations are purportedly recorded.
That could be why so few Ukrainians know the story of Alexei Podolsky, a 45-year-old former member of parliament.
On June 6, 2000, as Podolsky finished printing a sheaf of anti-Kuchma leaflets here, he said, he was abducted by three men and driven 78 miles to the rural area of Sumi, where he was severely beaten.
Before the assailants left him in a grove of trees, he said, one of them warned him: "If you continue, you will pay with your life." When he returned to Kiev, he said, he found his front door burned.
Months later, Podolsky said, he read about his own abduction and beating in what purports to be a transcript of yet another secretly taped conversation in Kuchma's office. The transcript was posted on the Internet site of Oleksandr Zhyr, a leader of an anti-Kuchma party.
"The day before yesterday, he ended up all the way in Sumi oblast, the one that distributed. And they gave it to him there in such a way," said a man whom Zhyr identified as then-Interior Minister Yuri Kravchenko.
Then Kravchenko told Kuchma about the burned door, according to the transcript.
"(Both laughing,)" the transcript says.
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Ukrainians Demand Reopening of Nuke Plant
December 17, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Ukraine-Chernobyl-Protest.html
KIEV, Ukraine (AP) -- Braving freezing weather, thousands of Ukrainians rallied Tuesday to call for the reopening of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant and to demand funding promised when the plant closed two years ago.
Some 8,000 to 10,000 people, including hundreds of pensioners and children who suffered health damage from the Chernobyl accident, came to Kiev's central Sofia Square.
Protesters demanded that Ukrainian and Western governments restore benefits to some 3.3 million people affected by the accident, or that the plant be partially reopened to provide electricity and jobs.
They waved banners reading ``Give Chernobyl a second life'' and ``No money, no safety.''
Chernobyl was the site of world's worst nuclear disaster in 1986, when one of its reactors exploded, sending a radioactive cloud over much of Europe.
``We want to restore everything that has been taken from these kids' lives -- medicine is not provided, there's no rehabilitation, no food. Everything has been taken from the children,'' said Nadezhda Matyesh, director of the Chernobyl Children's Fund for Survival.
After the one-hour protest, demonstrators broke into groups to picket the embassies of the Group of Seven richest nations, demanding their governments finance programs to meet Ukraine's energy needs and solve problems caused by Chernobyl's closure.
A U.S. Embassy representative attended the demonstration and received a letter of demands. ``We will read it and give it consideration,'' the embassy said.
Ukraine's cash-strapped government has been unable to meet its generous Soviet-era obligations to provide social protections for survivors of the accident. Demonstrators also protested cuts in Chernobyl benefits planned for the 2003 budget.
The Canadian Embassy said the G-7 countries and the European Union never agreed to provide funds to cover the social effects of Chernobyl's closure, adding in a statement that they have pledged $200 million more for technical work than was originally agreed in 1995.
Ukraine shuttered Chernobyl's last reactor in December 2000 and appealed for Western help in completing the Rivne and Khmelnytskyi reactors to compensate for the lost electricity capacity.
In April, officials at the Chernobyl plant said gaps in the concrete and steel shell, or so-called sarcophagus, that covers the damaged rea